Search This Blog

180 Characters And A Jail Pass

The Indian cyber world has been going agog since the news of the arrest of IAC (India Against Corruption) activist Ravi Srinivasan on November 1st for posting a tweet against Karti Chidambaram, the son of finance minister P. Chidambaram has been released. Turns out there is a law that is against people publishing something online that is offensive that defames another person. If that was the case (and if the Indian government actually checked online) majority of the Indians would be behind the cold bars for the above said offense.

I find this quite absurd and disturbing that a free country
like India has an act that curbs the freedom of speech. I believe that a man
should be free to voice his opinion with no distinction between whether the
opinion is acceptable or not. If no negative opinions are to be released,
people would suffer as there would be no one to react against the unscrupulous corrupt acts of the government.

Ravi Srinivasan has refused to apologize or take back his
opinion. Good going, I would say. I hope this doesn't make the Indians take a
step back from reacting against what is wrong. You can still find his tweet
stating, “@ravi_the_indian: got
reports that karthick chidambaram has amassed more wealth than vadra.” in
his twitter account. Too bad he didn't realize that a 180 character
tweet sent out to his 16 followers would land him in jail. Next time I tweet
about my cat’s foul smell, I will make sure to ask him before hand whether such
a tweet would put him in deep distress.

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

After fourteen years of school life, my expectations of a college life were over the roof. It was a long wait and finally, today, my first day of college came along.

At 9:00 AM in the morning, I had already missed my bus and had come to college with dad. I stood there, outside the college gates and took it all in for one last time. This is it. The beginning. A deep breath and I was in.

A senior guided me to my classroom. Four girls were seated, one in each bench. I went and sat next to the prettiest one in a multi coloured dress. We sparked a friendship on the spot. By each passing minute, more students walked in and before long, the class was half full with girls. Then walked in the boys. Five of them. My subject is B.A Functional English; not much demanded by the male crowd. We hoped more would come in later on. Sadly none more.

As we sat there, discussing what college would be like, a lady in blue and white walked it. Frankly, it was hate at first sight. She stood next to one of the…

My first strike =D. Not mine exactly. The KSU held a strike today so classes went on only for 15 minutes and we were let off. Since I had to pay off my first term fees, I went to the office. They made me wait for 2 hours; till all the students had paid their fees. That was the one reason what changed a lot of things. By the time I got out of the office, The college was nearly empty and all the girls had gone home. There were some boys in groups sitting here and there.
As I walked towards the gate, I heard, "chu chu". My heart raced as i foresaw the future. "chu chu" it went again. I turned. 7 to 8 boys were sitting on the steps. "chu chu" was their way of calling me over. I went halfheartedly. I kept turning back to see if my saviour of a friend was anywhere to be seen. No such luck.
"Are those sandals the new fashion?"

I hail from a very democratic country,
India. But if you ask me, I would say that my household is anything but
democratic. Freedom of speech is one main problem we all face; especially girls
like me with a huge mouth. I can start talking and not cease till I feel
satisfied. I am never rude and I make sure of that. I say what I think and
don’t always think about whether the others like it or not. According to me, a
fire in my mind is better put out than let burning.

Recently, I was exaggerating the beauty of the houses, one my father’s and one
his brother’s. The intention in my mind was to let them know how grateful I am
for all their help and how magnificent their hard work was. Too bad that I did
not know it would all strike me back one day. My mom pulled me in and spanked
me with a lecture about how to keep my mouth shut. It turns out you aren’t
supposed to speak about the beauty of things because if some day something
happens to it, I would be blamed. They would say, “She had her e…